It is sometimes surprising just how easily a landlord can seriously and negatively affect their chances of letting a property.

Here are just a few things that we at Cover4LetProperty would always advise you to consider when you are placing an online advertisement.

Photographs – quality

Whatever you may wish to be the case, the reality is that apart perhaps from your initial headline title, little of your text will be looked at seriously until your potential tenants have studied your photographs first.

So, it doesn’t matter how flowing and brilliantly descriptive your words are, if your photographs are of poor quality then the chances are your carefully constructed prose will never get read.

So, avoid poorly-lit photos that show a little or nothing of your property and don’t make false economies by cutting down on the numbers of photographs you use in order to try and save money.

Photographs – relevance

Another classic mistake that is frequently seen, relates to photographs that are, by any definition, useless.

Illustrations there include things such as photographs of individual items of furniture, kitchen appliances or the front door in a context where nothing else of the externals of the property can be seen.

Broadly speaking, potential tenants want to see photographs of the full façade of the property both front and back, plus good wide-angle shots of all the major rooms. If space in your advertisement permits, try to include one or two of the views out of your main windows.

In particular, make efforts to ensure that your rooms are tidy at the point of being photographed and are free of human or animal occupants.

Descriptions

Your descriptions should be full but without being verbose.

Make sure you talk about things people are interested in and avoid those which they are not. For example, as important as it may have been to you, that let property insurance comparison that you carried out when looking for a policy is not likely to interest your tenants much. They are going to be far more interested in the dimensions of the kitchen and how many bedrooms your property has etc.

Use simple everyday language and try to avoid replicating the flowery and occasionally ridiculous descriptions used by some estate agents. An example might include saying simply that a room is rectangular-shaped, rather than that the room is principally of rectangular form and proportions!

Above all, never lie or deliberately attempt to mislead people in your descriptions. Failing to mention a serious problem with your property in your advertisement may simply lead to intense disappointment or even recriminations when people arrive for viewings.

Of course, accentuate the positive and don’t dwell on the negatives but avoid being economical with the truth.

Spelling and grammar

Make sure that your description contains no spelling errors or major grammatical gaffes.

They can be hugely off-putting to potential tenants – particularly if you are trying to market a property you regard as being prestige.

If you are not confident in your ability with things such as spelling, grammar and punctuation, you should be prepared to get someone to write your advertisement that is.